Making Simple Graphical Linux Distro from Scratch

[@jyothishkumar3098]

The cursor trails are probably due to Nano-X running in Framebuffer mode. I observed that the mouse trails over the window disappear when the window is repainted. The trails are due to the background not being repainted as the mouse is moved. The window itself doesn't leave any traces when moved though. So it's just the mouse cursor that lacks integration with the window management.

[@nirlichtman]

Interesting point 👍

[@fabrilluviaofficial]

how can i fix it?

[@jyothishkumar3098]

​​@@fabrilluviaofficial 7:07 pick the config.linux-X11 file instead of config.linux-fb.

[@jyothishkumar3098]

@@fabrilluviaofficial At 7:07, choose the X11 option. My last reply got removed for some reason.

[@fabrilluviaofficial]

@@jyothishkumar3098 ok, thx a lot

[@8ack2Lobby]

lets go! I can see hundreds of new distros flooding in after this video 😂

[@Aryan-de9jw]

:))

[@knghtbrd]

Yup, all the vegan crossfitter zennials who run Arch BTW, all use a tiling WM, think it's appropriate for config files to be literal C source code, insist the "cat" command shouldn't exist even when it's a shell builtin, and call anyone 5 years older than them or more is a "boomer"… Those people, AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, are all gonna be running their own custom microdistributions real soon. 🤣 I actually did LinuxFromScratch once before some of the above-mentioned children were born. Obviously the system is bigger now and more complex due to cgroups, systemd, EFI (which didn't exist in the real world back then), etc. But it's probably gotten less complex to build. Just more to understand now.

[@ADarnSmore]

@@knghtbrd how do you know a linux user isn't running arch? they'll immediately start complaining about arch users before you even say anything.

[@4t0mic57]

@@knghtbrd what did `cat` ever do to you? qwq

[@deudz]

@@4t0mic57 less better cat

[@pixobit5882]

It is shockingly simple to create your own distro. Iv'e always thought, that it is super difficult and LFS was the only option to create a custom distro. Really nice tutorial! I'm gonna try to create my own distro later. Keep up making simple and amazing videos like this!

[@faithinverity8523]

Yesterday I freaked out because I watched your video about creating a non-graphical system. And now this! You redefine what kool is.

[@RocktCityTim]

Excellent example of how we don't all need a fully bloated Linux distro to do real work. Thanks, Nir!

[@Blob-qo5iq]

At this point you should use stuff like Debian Server (no desktop environment) or Debian with Xfce. Both are very very lightweight, not bloated but their apt repositories is very nice, has a lot of useful stuff and are just easier to use

[@kieferhendricks6680]

Great videos, man! I've done two of your projects so far and have learned so much from them. Keep up the great work!

[@patrickprucha5522]

very cool! I think im going to try it too. Cheers. BTW i love your vids!

[@marcusk7855]

What a great video. I have absolutely no use for this but I'm going to follow along and built it myself too.

[@fabrilluviaofficial]

hello nir, i was doing the past tutorial of busybox to make a simple linux distro, and now, I watch at my laptop, at your channel, and i found this 💎. unbelievable. thx for so much

[@Nunya58294]

You'll have a blast good sir

[@benarcher372]

We all love tutorials like this!

[@fr0xk]

I like you meritorious this channel is, no ideological bullshit, just gets job done

[@fakestiv]

Nice to see that you read the comment on the last linux distro video and actually explained what the end result would be at the begonning

[@Artimis.depressed]

Amazing, from your old non-graphical distro you already earned a subscriber but this is double as cool, if i could subscribe to you twice i would.

[@mrsofanthiel]

Pro tip: To make Cirrus an integrated part of the kernel, you need to make CONFIG_DRM integrated as well. Also, in the .config file (visible with ls -a), don't forget to replace the Certs part: # # Certificates for signature checking # CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_KEY="certs/signing_key.pem" CONFIG_SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEYRING=y CONFIG_SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEYS="" CONFIG_SYSTEM_EXTRA_CERTIFICATE=y CONFIG_SYSTEM_EXTRA_CERTIFICATE_SIZE=4096 CONFIG_SECONDARY_TRUSTED_KEYRING=y CONFIG_SYSTEM_BLACKLIST_KEYRING=y CONFIG_SYSTEM_BLACKLIST_HASH_LIST="" CONFIG_SYSTEM_REVOCATION_LIST=y CONFIG_SYSTEM_REVOCATION_KEYS="" # end of Certificates for signature checking This should work in most circumstances. The main difference with this config is that it doesn't use canonical's certs.

[@suzukiaccess5022]

@nirlichtman the X Window System is supposed to have a complete and transparent separation between the XServer part and the client application part. However, in most cases, both run the same machine so it is never clear how the two components works. Now that you came one tutorial with NanoX and an earlier with writing an X11 application, could you take a shot at a tutorial that clearly demonstrates the two parts? A machine that only implements the XServer part and connects over network to another machine that strictly implements the Client application part.

[@nirlichtman]

That is a good idea for next video :)

[@leapbtw]

dropped everything i was doing to watch this lol nice content

[@arduinoguru7233]

Brilliant, this isn't looks that complicated compare what I thought

[@spacewolfjr]

Awesome video, thanks!

[@Pauli1505]

if you get a "cannot initialise keyboard!" error, it means you probably use a different nanox config, in your config, you need to put a valid mouse and keyboard driver in "MOUSE" and "KEYBOARD". using the fbe config, scankbd and DEVMICEMOUSE wont work like in the normal config, you can use things like usb drivers.

[@Nunya58294]

This is really good for beginners who want their own OS or distro but don't quite have the knowledge for it; Well done!

[@wiseskeshom4673]

Wow, What a great video. Thanks a lot for teaching us these cool stuff. 😊😊

[@user-3bs8jd83js]

Additional info: while make menuconfig, you can directly press y, n, or m, instead of pressing `space` again and again.

[@darkraven4207]

Can you please guide me at the start of the video on CMD he ran very first command when i tried to do the same on my CMD windows 10 it says "docker is not recognized as an internal ....." On which platform should I build this?

[@TheAio]

If im not mistaken, wasn't xz-utils recently part of a major exploit? Would it still be safe to use xz-utils?

[@Gkcrafting]

I Had no trouble setting up Nano-X, but when trying to start the server (`nano-X`), I get an error saying: "Cannot initialize keyboard". I wonder why it does that and how can I fix it? Also, I want to use SDL2 on fullscreen with KMS/DRM, how can I do that? I can't find any helpful ressources online.

[@divyeshpatel9103]

Very well defined tutorial 👌 Thank you.

[@reyuki-i]

15:44 why you use /dev/sda instead of / ? I confuse because in the previous video, the root parameter is /

[@Pauli1505]

he was chooing /dev/sda, because its the root filesystem partition to install it on

[@EzhikOFF13]

i understood only a half but still great video thanks man

[@NetBSDToaster-u8e]

Awesome stuff!

[@TheodorMoroianu]

What shell is beging ran? I don't understand when /bin/sh, /bin/bash or similar were installed on the system. Also, when was /bin/ls installed?

[@rmassink]

Pretty cool, but I could not help but notice you copied libc and some other libs from the debian docker distro instead of compiling them from source. Which is fine of course, but why not compile those too, if you go the length of compiling busybox and nanox. Or do you recon that would be a video in itself, to show how to link all programs against a source-build libc version?

[@Lucy-Luc-Lu-L]

Hey Nir. Thanks for the video! If possible, please suggest workarounds and stuff for M1 chip users

[@nirlichtman]

I plan on making a video in the future about making a distro for Raspberry Pi, since it is also ARM, it may be helpful for M1 as well

[@pastaya]

asahi linux kernel

[@Quan-um4np]

what is the mix keyboard. I don't no that, because i'm newbie

[@skydivertyler]

Would this have been affected by the XZ/Libzma backdoor vulnerability?

[@Dan-Levi]

Very cool! Is it possible to include chromium-browser (gpu accelerated?) and automatically start it in kiosk mode for a specific website?

[@qqwui9989]

This is based on Nano-x which is severely limited in functionality. It cant run chromium and definitely doesnt havr gpu acceleration

[@Dan-Levi]

Thanks, saved me the time to try and fail 😀

[@nirlichtman]

Yah Chromium would probably be quite complicated to port but it can run Dillo which is a basic text/css web browser

[@ovi1326]

You could also just use xorg x11 instead of nanox. Or even go for a wayland compositor instead which might be a notch simpler (I'm thinking gamescope or sway)

[@sys935]

Better localhost / localfile where src.html folder in localdisk to work offline/online

[@IdioticMath]

how would you add smth like git to this? Would it be to /usr and binaries?

[@theSoberSobber]

same way you added nanox man, they are just packages, any package needs itself (the binary), and the shared libs it might depend on (.a or .so's), more often than not they'll have a `make install` or similar.

[@IdioticMath]

@@theSoberSobber thanks man

[@TheMLXProj-Linux]

can you share kernel config files? Or modified kernel image? Thanks...

[@bob-007]

thx nice video. I was inspired to create a simple BusyBox distro with networking. Every time I try post a link or ref, my post seems to get removed. 😭

[@bob-007]

GitHub EN10/BusyBoxLinux

[@bramfran4326]

This looks hard, very very interesting video nonetheless!

[@h4rlystesh491]

How difficult to add package manager for this distro? For example pacman or nix.

[@reyuki-i]

13:10 what's the difference between dd and truncate?

[@nirlichtman]

truncate is more intuitive for the use case in the video, it also has additional advantages, one of the comments on my previous distro from scratch vid suggested its use and elaborates more on this

[@sirk3v]

any chance you could do one on making android custom rom?

[@nirlichtman]

That could be interesting, I'll consider that for a future video, I think it should be possible to do it pretty quickly using buildroot

[@Quadalarm]

@@nirlichtman So far I know, you have to use software or packages to build it for every smartphone separately. How difficult is it to get these packages or software?

[@comosaycomosah]

it would be cool to see a custom rom build i havent thought about grapheneos and the like for awhile but wanna play with some soon @@nirlichtman

[@AZIZ-bc6xb]

what did you choose as a specialty after the first years in college computer science so you can understand and making distro ? i like ur content btw

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks! I am actually now on my first year in college, these kinds of stuff I learned by myself for fun, programming is my hobby from a young age.

[@ДангуолеРасалайте-м4у]

Drink every time nir says actually

[@nirlichtman]

Actually, I didn't notice that 😂

[@manofacertainrage856]

When starting in qemu, I'm getting an endless stream of "can't open /dev/ttyX: No such file or directory" The X is 1 to 4. What did I miss?

[@nirlichtman]

Sounds like you forgot to create the directories for the root file system, there are a couple I create in the video, including /dev

[@rickybarabba7866]

Thanks for sharing. Just subscribed.

[@chrisxdeboy]

Think you could do a FreeBSD version?

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, that is a good idea :)

[@chrisxdeboy]

@nirlichtman he'll yeha! I've kinda wanted to make my own FreeBSD "distro" with a focus on being easy enough for Grandma to use, but powerful enough that you'd want to.

[@chrisxdeboy]

@nirlichtman well, I gave you a subscribe in case you do make a video on it!

[@chrisxdeboy]

@@nirlichtman Also, and I hope I'm not bothering you, would it be possible for you to go over, in general, how one includes programs into their distro, like the overall idea?

[@nirlichtman]

Yah I will cover that in the FreeBSD distro video :)

[@davidenglish3801]

I will run it on my Android device to learn how it works, by termux. May it's possible by using X11-termux close as you did.

[@dj.yacine]

Wee want more high quality content like this 😊

[@krnlexception]

can i replace nanox with full x11 or wayland?

[@pastaya]

you can but more complicated

[@fabiosarts]

If you are using an actual linux distro for it, you can use fakeroot to simulate being root, it's pretty useful when creating the initrd for example C:

[@Jaspinik]

You skipped the hardest part, internet connectivity 🤣.

[@natureless1]

You dont need to

[@maksimmuruev423]

How we should trust guy with windows in linux setup?

[@Ooohhnvfykknjjhyfcvjiuffhhhhhh]

Is it possible to install a de in the os?

[@mrsofanthiel]

Probably, but you may need to tinker around a bit. If you can get your hands on the NanoLinux source code, then I would start looking in there for an implementation that will most likely work best.

[@antoniobarbalau1107]

wow this is amazing

[@Paolog_]

Very Cool !!! I'm asking myself how do you know all this things. And can you make a tuto of making a mini-DE for Linux?

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, I plan on eventually making a video in the future about setting up either Xorg or a Wayland Compositor and with that a desktop environment as well

[@Paolog_]

Very cool!!!

[@ewof]

what keyboard/mouse do u use

[@nirlichtman]

My mouse is Microsoft Intellimouse Optical and my keyboard is DELL SK-8110 (but when I am recording videos I use a more quite keyboard)

[@tzebruh]

yo! i've been waiting for this one!

[@mzakyr342]

finally, yeah baby

[@AK11020]

Without sounding too puritanical, curious as to why you're doing this from a Windows desktop instead of Linux

[@maxscott3349]

I don't know but it's really nice that so many of these tools have been ported to Windows so you can do stuff like this on a Windows machine. There's a lot of times where it comes in handy

[@nirlichtman]

My main computer is Windows and I find it comfortable to work with WSL and Docker when I need Linux stuff, more info on the welcome link on my channel

[@18sohamkulkarni95]

This is very cool but how to add a config file syslinux.cfg in this process??

[@Pauli1505]

right b4 you do the mnt umount thing, before building the image you get a change to add a syslinux.cfg

[@ahmedabuharthieh579]

Amazing work

[@pesadelo9539]

HOW THAT I CAN SEARCH MOUSEDEV?

[@xhalved]

Could it be possible to make a package system for a distro like this?

[@nirlichtman]

Yes, there a bunch of existing options for example using the Alpine package manager which is called apk-tools or maybe opkg, I may make a video in the future about making a distro with a package manager.

[@rullypratama]

Making a GUI Linux distro in Windows? Sounds legit.

[@jreallyrean8208]

He used docker

[@interrrp_with_three_rs]

it's WSL

[@easalarms123]

@@interrrp_with_three_rs thanks

[@satr14-tech]

make a sequel where you can actually do programming in this with someting like gcc, nasm, python, or any modern language bcuz this could have a lot of extensibility on the os

[@komram4396]

Yeah, the real shit starts when you add a compiler.

[@guestsneezeplayz]

i keep on getting an issue in QEMU that img is not bootable

[@natureless1]

do you have qemu

[@guestsneezeplayz]

@@natureless1 yes

[@ItsCOMMANDer_]

idk why, but graphics dont work for me

[@guilherme5094]

👍👍Nice!!

[@Alectro.superioruser]

About TWM please.

[@jackkendall6420]

chad behaviour

[@gustawitresh]

excellent video

[@reyuki-i]

nice video!

[@milasudril]

LFS spends a lot of steps on the host before the target is bootable. Can we keep going from busybox and nanox as a way to get self-hosting earlier?

[@beetledjuice3062]

Awesome

[@DanielOliveiraViolao]

Noice!

[@PewPewCricket]

busybox wont build on newer kernels :D cool!

[@azrael-labs]

Bro... I gonna make the ultimate gaming distro out of this, starts with a console, opens a graphical application when demanded

[@SirChristoferus]

Thanks for the tutorial, I’ve been thinking about building something like this with a Git-based script acting as the package manager. Through aliased terminal commands, the script would pull non-conflicting packages from stable and secure Git branches.

[@StickyGeek]

docker isnt working

[@TunifyBasic]

need some automation.

[@caretchara]

hell yeah

[@officialtetronome]

instructions unclear: kernel fails to compile on line 1934

[@Pauli1505]

u need to use docker because of the filesystem using it on a normal native system doesnt work

[@objectiveSquid]

NOOOO HE HAS RECALL INSTALLED😭😭😭

[@GameBacardi]

👌

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Yofi !

[@Vednier]

Building Linux distro from Windows. Yeah, rright.

[@PAFBEAST]

He using wsl which literally is Linux lol

[@Vednier]

@@PAFBEAST "WSL is Linux" is so Microsoft...

[@PAFBEAST]

@@Vednier Linux in Microsoft...

[@feltmacaroon389]

@@PAFBEAST No, it's not WSL, it's Docker.

[@PAFBEAST]

@@feltmacaroon389 its not

[@Zeitgeistpionier]

Schade, dass du nicht erklärst, was du tust.

[@bluescorpian]

Why you using windows lol?

[@itscharlie0110]

Windows is cool

[@iamnotmega]

HOW THE FUCK DO I WRITE IN THE CONFIG FILE

[@theSoberSobber]

using nanoX is cheating :(( make one with xooooorrrggggg :(

[@nirlichtman]

I tried Xorg, Weston and Sway beforehand and they all had very convoluted build and setup. There is also tinyx which comes from Tiny Core Linux but I couldn't get it to build. When I will have more time I might come back to this and try again since this is interesting :)

[@theiaproject3467]

"xz-utils" bum

[@venkysoftwarehardwarecreat2683]

🎉super𓽤

[@ronilichtman5176]

This is awesome!

[@nirlichtman]

Thanks Bro!